C&C Generals: Zero Hour: Command Line Arguments

Command line arguments allow you to modify Zero Hour's behavior in a number of ways, all of which are described below. To use these command line arguments, you must modify your Zero Hour shortcut. You can modify the shortcut by right-clicking on the Zero Hour icon (on your Desktop or in your Start Menu) and selecting Properties.

For example, to use the "quickstart" argument described below, you would modify your Zero Hour shortcut to point to:

The following is a list of the command line arguments supported by C&C Generals: Zero Hour.

Argument

Description

-quickstart

Stops Zero Hour's intro movie from playing every time you start the game. Also disables the game's shell map (see the -noshellmap option below).

-noshellmap

Disables the game's title screen shell map (the ongoing battle behind the main Zero Hour menus).

-noshaders

This disables in-game shader effects. If you are running under Windows 98, have an ATI Radeon 9200 video card installed, and are experiencing random crashes, try running with this command line argument.

-xres [#]

Forces Zero Hour to use the horizontal resolution specified, where # is this horizontal resolution. e.g. -xres 1200

-yres [#]

Forces Zero Hour to use the vertical resolution specified, where # is this vertical resolution.
e.g. -yres 900

-win

Causes Zero Hour to run in windowed mode.

-mod [.BIG file]

Allows you to play Zero Hour using the mod contained in the .BIG file specified. This .BIG file has to be located within your My Documents\Command and Conquer Generals Data\ folder. This command line switch lets you start Generals with the mod of your choice, without cluttering the main Zero Hour folder with .BIG files from multiple mods. This argument is not compatible with all mods, however, since some make changes to Zero Hour that are beyond this command line argument's scope. Refer to the installation instructions of the particular mod you want to play for details on whether using this command line argument is appropriate.